thedrifter
08-24-03, 07:16 AM
08-21-2003
From the Editor:
Go After Those Who Incited the Bombers
By Ed Offley
The sudden escalation of bombing attacks in Iraq and Israel in the past two weeks does not signify merely that guerrillas and terrorists are getting better at their murderous work.
The situation is far more dangerous than that.
It is becoming clearer by the day that elements of radical Islam have launched a major, concerted counter-offensive in multiple locations to drive the United States and its allies out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to plunge the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into major new bloodshed.
This time, there is a clear connection between the incitement to violence, and the violence itself.
In a little-publicized conference in Sweden last month, a group of leading Islamic clerics declared jihad against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, including allied troops, the United Nations and Iraqis sympathetic to the forces that liberated them from Saddam Hussein. As reported by journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave this week, the Islamic group also explicitly voiced its support for the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan and called on radical Islamists in Kashmir to wage war against India.
The cleric behind the declaration of holy war is Sunni Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a group of prominent clerics who ostensibly work to monitor the human rights treatment of Muslims in the West. Instead, he called on Muslims everywhere to mount “martyrdom operations” against the West and any Muslims who support the notions of freedom and democracy:
“What weapon can harm our enemy, can prevent [him] from sleeping, and strip of a sense of security and stability, except for these human bombs – a young man or woman who blows himself or herself up among their enemy? This is a weapon the likes of which the enemy cannot obtain, even if the U.S. provides it with billions of dollars and the most powerful weapons, because it is a unique weapon that Allah has placed only in the hands of the men of belief. It is a type of divine justice on Earth, the weapon of the wretched weak against the powerful tyrant.”
The results have been stark and unambiguous.
Within several weeks of the clerics’ meeting in Stockholm, a powerful bomb exploded outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad on Aug. 7, killing 19 people. Twelve days later, the terrorist group Hamas blew up a passenger bus in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Aug. 19, killing 20 and injuring another 100 people. Also on Tuesday, an explosives-packed truck blew up outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing its chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and at least 19 others.
Experts say the two Iraqi blasts were similar in that they showed much greater sophistication, planning and killing power than the “target of opportunity” strikes that have hampered the restoration of electrical power and water in Iraq.
What is also new in Iraq is the target selection. As The Washington Times pointed out in an editorial today:
“The bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad yesterday should be revelatory even to the most credulous of the world’s citizens. This was not an attack on ‘imperial’ American troops, but on the Third World-dominated, anti-Israeli, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War United Nations. It is truly a declaration that the terrorists stand against all flags.”
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the Taliban has launched its own counter-offensive. Insurgents have killed ten policemen in a campaign of violence that has claimed more than 90 lives in the past week, the worst eruption of bloodshed since the overthrow of the regime in Afghanistan 20 months ago. The guerillas are targeting U.S. troops, Afghan government officials, local police and foreign aid workers.
There is growing evidence that radical Islamists are pouring into Iraq across the porous Saudi and Syrian borders. Reports have appeared that the radical Ansar al-Islam group has reconstituted itself after being driven out of its camps by U.S. forces in March. Even al Qaeda is believed to be attempting to infiltrate into Iraq to harass and kill American and allied troops.
There is increased danger, but there is also a unique opportunity at hand in the wake of the U.N. headquarters bombing.
Now that radical Islam has done to the U.N. what it did to the United States on 9/11, President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan should press to find common ground in bolstering the international community’s efforts to bring peace to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. A first concrete step should be to convene an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi and other radical clerics for conspiring to incite war crimes against the West.
Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=FTE.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=1&rnd=58.5447914779616
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
From the Editor:
Go After Those Who Incited the Bombers
By Ed Offley
The sudden escalation of bombing attacks in Iraq and Israel in the past two weeks does not signify merely that guerrillas and terrorists are getting better at their murderous work.
The situation is far more dangerous than that.
It is becoming clearer by the day that elements of radical Islam have launched a major, concerted counter-offensive in multiple locations to drive the United States and its allies out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to plunge the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into major new bloodshed.
This time, there is a clear connection between the incitement to violence, and the violence itself.
In a little-publicized conference in Sweden last month, a group of leading Islamic clerics declared jihad against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, including allied troops, the United Nations and Iraqis sympathetic to the forces that liberated them from Saddam Hussein. As reported by journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave this week, the Islamic group also explicitly voiced its support for the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan and called on radical Islamists in Kashmir to wage war against India.
The cleric behind the declaration of holy war is Sunni Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a group of prominent clerics who ostensibly work to monitor the human rights treatment of Muslims in the West. Instead, he called on Muslims everywhere to mount “martyrdom operations” against the West and any Muslims who support the notions of freedom and democracy:
“What weapon can harm our enemy, can prevent [him] from sleeping, and strip of a sense of security and stability, except for these human bombs – a young man or woman who blows himself or herself up among their enemy? This is a weapon the likes of which the enemy cannot obtain, even if the U.S. provides it with billions of dollars and the most powerful weapons, because it is a unique weapon that Allah has placed only in the hands of the men of belief. It is a type of divine justice on Earth, the weapon of the wretched weak against the powerful tyrant.”
The results have been stark and unambiguous.
Within several weeks of the clerics’ meeting in Stockholm, a powerful bomb exploded outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad on Aug. 7, killing 19 people. Twelve days later, the terrorist group Hamas blew up a passenger bus in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Aug. 19, killing 20 and injuring another 100 people. Also on Tuesday, an explosives-packed truck blew up outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing its chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and at least 19 others.
Experts say the two Iraqi blasts were similar in that they showed much greater sophistication, planning and killing power than the “target of opportunity” strikes that have hampered the restoration of electrical power and water in Iraq.
What is also new in Iraq is the target selection. As The Washington Times pointed out in an editorial today:
“The bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad yesterday should be revelatory even to the most credulous of the world’s citizens. This was not an attack on ‘imperial’ American troops, but on the Third World-dominated, anti-Israeli, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War United Nations. It is truly a declaration that the terrorists stand against all flags.”
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the Taliban has launched its own counter-offensive. Insurgents have killed ten policemen in a campaign of violence that has claimed more than 90 lives in the past week, the worst eruption of bloodshed since the overthrow of the regime in Afghanistan 20 months ago. The guerillas are targeting U.S. troops, Afghan government officials, local police and foreign aid workers.
There is growing evidence that radical Islamists are pouring into Iraq across the porous Saudi and Syrian borders. Reports have appeared that the radical Ansar al-Islam group has reconstituted itself after being driven out of its camps by U.S. forces in March. Even al Qaeda is believed to be attempting to infiltrate into Iraq to harass and kill American and allied troops.
There is increased danger, but there is also a unique opportunity at hand in the wake of the U.N. headquarters bombing.
Now that radical Islam has done to the U.N. what it did to the United States on 9/11, President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan should press to find common ground in bolstering the international community’s efforts to bring peace to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. A first concrete step should be to convene an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi and other radical clerics for conspiring to incite war crimes against the West.
Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=FTE.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=1&rnd=58.5447914779616
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: